Seasons of Cloud and Shadow, Like the Desert Remix
by Elizabeth Culmer
Summary: Many waters cannot quench love; neither can the floods drown it. Love is as strong as death. ShikamaruTemari, light lime, death. Written for RemixRedux 6.
1. Like the Deserts Miss the Rain

**Disclaimer:** _Naruto_ is the intellectual property of Masashi Kishimoto, Shueisha, VIZ Media, et al. No money is being made from this story and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Author's Note:** I wrote this story for Remix Redux VI. The original story -- "Seasons of Cloud and Shadow," by everysecondtuesday -- can be found at **manicjoy . livejournal . com / 5329 . html**

Four more things: **1)** Huge thanks to Vicky, who weeded out the worst of my stupidity on very short notice! **2)** A virga is precipitation that evaporates before it hits the ground. **3)** The summary is a paraphrase of bits of Song of Songs, 8:6-7. **4)** If you want more of my thoughts on this story, and on the process of remixing, you can find an extended Author's Note at **edenfalling . livejournal . com / 318228 . html**

**Summary:** Many waters cannot quench love; neither can the floods drown it. Love is as strong as death. TemariShikamaru, light lime, death.

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**Seasons of Cloud and Shadow (Like the Deserts Miss the Rain)**  
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**Virga:**

Once upon a time, there was a princess who had forgotten how to smile.

(She wasn't exactly a princess, and there's a difference between smiling and _smiling_, but truth has many faces and not all of them deal in facts. Listen to the story. If it doesn't speak to you, wash the slate clean and try again -- you'll find the truth as you go.)

The princess lived in a country made of sand and wind and sky, where water was a distant dream and rain never touched the earth. Maybe that was why she didn't remember how to smile or laugh from her heart -- or maybe she was sad and angry because her family was broken in half a hundred ways. But whatever the reason, the princess was empty inside, no matter how hard she trained or how fiercely she fought for survival.

One day, an evil wizard sent the princess and her brothers to invade the neighboring kingdom, which was made of trees and shadows. While she waited for the signal to attack, the princess met a tarnished knight who didn't much care about chivalry or war, and who rarely smiled himself -- he didn't want to bother unless he had to.

They fought. She lost. It was the end of her world -- if she was weak, the emptiness inside would swallow her.

But the knight had very little use for war. Instead of claiming victory, he surrendered and left the battlefield.

Much later, after the evil wizard was exposed and the war ended, the knight stumbled into a new battle. This time, none of his cleverness could save him from death.

But the princess remembered him. She arrived at the last minute and saved his life. In the wreckage of the battlefield, they shared a smile.

Eventually they fell in love. Neither particularly meant to -- the princess didn't remember how, for one thing, and the knight thought love was far too much bother -- but there's a reason narrative conventions become conventional. They still didn't smile very often, at least when anyone else could see, but after a while they stopped claiming not to care... though they couldn't help wondering, sometimes, whether everything might still go horribly wrong.

At first they alternated visits -- desert to forest to desert -- but once the princess saw a rainstorm, saw water streaming from the sky like tears, pouring down and down into the thirsty earth, she stopped asking the knight to visit her home. Instead, she stepped out into his garden, trying to drink in the rain like the rich, dark earth, trying to bring forth life like the forest brought forth green.

"Come inside," the knight told her. "You'll get soaked, catch the flu, and die, and then I'd have to arrange your funeral -- much too troublesome."

The princess laughed, and took his hand, and went indoors where it was warm and bright and dry. And they lived happily ever after.

(This is a lie.)

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**Oasis:**

"What are you going out for?" he asks. "It's pouring rain."

"Yes," she agrees, and slides open the door.

Rain thrums on the house, patters on the leaves, drums on the ground, assaults her hair and skin and clothes with a thousand thousand tiny needles -- drenches her, drowns her, slicks her cold and damp and utterly, utterly alive.

Temari smiles.

"Have fun?" Shikamaru asks when she drifts indoors, still lost in dreams of water. His eyes are dark, fathomless, but they drift down from her face, toward her breasts. She pulls the ties from her hair -- one, two, three, four -- and peels her dress down from her shoulders.

"There're towels, uh, towels in the--" he tries, his voice going thick and deep, to match his eyes.

Temari drops her clothes by the open door. She doesn't care who might see. She wants to hear the rain, feel the cool mist wafting in from the garden. "Take off your pants," she tells him. Shikamaru fumbles to comply, his clever fingers for once clumsy and slow. So she helps him, hurries him -- leans down and grabs the cloth as he lifts his hips, slides the pants down and off and throws them away.

"You're dripping on the tatami," he says as she pulls his underwear down the same way. His voice is unsteady; his arms quiver as he braces against the floor. He sits up, runs one hand through her hair, ghosts his fingertips along her cheek.

"So keep me from touching anything but you," she says, and sinks down onto his lap, wraps her arms around him, and breathes in the rain.

He fills the empty places.

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**Flood:**

"I can write the report. You don't have to face--" Ino said, scratching and scratching at the blood under her fingernails.

"Yes, I do."

"If you need anything--" Chouji ventured, hovering half in and half out of the doorway, hunching in, trying to look unobtrusive.

"I know," Shikamaru said. He inked his brush and turned his back, staring blankly out the rain-spattered window until his teammates slipped away into the gathering dusk.

--

Mission Report, October 22  
Unit 6-Blue (joint Konoha-Suna spec ops team)  
Commander: Uzumaki Naruto  
Second: Sabaku no Temari  
Strategist: Nara Shikamaru

Situation: Unit 29-Green (Konoha scouting team) arrived at base with word that Iwa's army was advancing over the border in a major assault. Uzumaki Naruto and Sabaku no Temari sent word to Konoha and Suna, respectively, but there was no time to wait for reinforcements. We attempted to set an ambush, but a storm broke shortly thereafter, rendering our efforts ineffective.

Results: The line held. 31 Iwa-nin confirmed dead -- 2 jounin (bingo book IDs attached), 1 special jounin (bingo book ID attached), 9 chuunin (estimated rank, no matching IDs), 19 genin (estimated rank, no matching IDs).

Casualties: 8 Konoha-nin confirmed dead -- 3 chuunin (IDs attached), 5 genin (IDs attached). 9 Suna-nin confirmed dead -- 1 jounin (Sabaku no Temari), 2 chuunin (IDs attached), 6 genin (IDs attached).

Follow-up: Uzumaki Naruto organized a temporary truce. Both sides removed casualties, and the Iwa-nin retreated to their lines, across the border. Recommendation that all survivors be given two days rest and recuperation before returning to the front lines.

--

Shikamaru set down his brush and stared into the gentle rain, empty words glistening wet and black beneath his hands.

Her legs had been gone. Not broken, not torn. Just gone.

He hadn't realized at first; the wound had been hidden under an unnatural outcropping of stone, the same rock that had sliced her in half. Rain had slicked her face, like tears, running into her mouth, choking her harsh, panting breaths.

"The rain got in my eyes; I slipped," she'd said when he grabbed her hand, wondering how on earth he'd made it through alive, with nothing more than a few stabs and scrapes and one shallow, seeping knock on his head. "What a mess. Sorry, Shikamaru."

She'd smiled.

Her skin had been cool and damp, her hair loose and tangled, her clothes soaked through so anyone passing could see the shape of her body. "I do love--" she'd said. Then she'd coughed, and died, her fingers slack and cold against his palm.

He'd knelt beside her until Chouji and Ino carried him away.

Now, outside, the remnants of the storm fell gently on his garden, without her. She'd never see the rain again.

Shikamaru closed his eyes.

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**Fountain:**

"What do you see in him?" Kankuro asked once when she came home from a diplomatic trip to Konoha, dragging herself thirsty and tired into the harsh, sun-filled bowl of Suna.

Temari let the echo of the monsoon rise up and fill her, felt her fingertips tingle with the sense-memory of Shikamaru's body. His skin was so smooth, like new leaves, like fruit -- ripe and full of water. He was deceptive that way -- underneath, he was as strong as any leather-tough desert traveler -- but he was a child of trees and shadows and rain, not sun and sand and sky.

He saw her pain, acknowledged it, and moved on -- washing the past away to let now sprout and bloom. He saw _her_.

"I see him," she said.

"That's not an answer," Kankuro grumbled.

"You just don't know how to listen," she said, and swept off to wash away the dust and sand of her journey. The bucket of water she dumped over her head to rinse was a pitiful imitation of a real storm -- lukewarm, slightly gritty, with the bitter alkali flavor that seeped from the cistern stones -- but for a minute she could almost feel Shikamaru's fingers running down her sides in the trails of water, feel his lips press against her temple in the brief ghost of steam.

She took a very long bath.

Kankuro tactfully refrained from mentioning any noise she might have made.

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**River:**

What is necessary to life?

Air. Food. Water.

Love?

That depends on how you define life. Shikamaru turns the question around and around, studying its refractions, and fails to reach a conclusion. He needs her; for now, that's enough. He'll think about the future when they get there.

They lie together, nestled in pillows and blankets. Rain thrums on the roof, glides down the pane of the window, rattles against the walls with each gust of wind. Temari's lips part, a finger's width, and her eyes are rapt. Shikamaru ignores the rain and watches her.

He combs his fingers through her hair, rubs circles against her temples. She blinks, tips her head back, and smirks. "Impatient? You?"

"Jealous," he says, and lowers one hand to her hip, walks his fingers across and down, navigating by touch and memory. "What's so interesting about water hitting the ground?"

"I could ask you the same about clouds," she says, and then he reaches his goal, presses, rubs. She gasps. "Sneak," she accuses, but there's no heat to the word. Her mouth softens, smiles, and then she twists around, kisses him, welcomes him in.

They dance, slow and languorous, to the rhythm of salt and water pulsing in their veins. Her fingers lace tightly through his, as if she needs him as fiercely as he needs her. Breath. Blood. Life. Always and forever.

After a time, he sleeps.

When he wakes, she's watching the rain.

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**Dew:**

Once upon a time, there was a princess who had forgotten how to smile, and a tarnished knight who loved her. For a while, they were happy -- but if you follow any story long enough, it ends in death.

The only question is whether you think the story is worthwhile during its brief flight through your mind and heart. All things end, but death doesn't negate life. The end of a storm doesn't negate the rain seeping into the earth. An ending can shade what came before, but never overwrite it. Even if we forget or ignore the past, everything that happened is still true.

Once upon a time, there was a princess who danced in the rain and refused to think about any time beyond now. Once upon a time, there was a knight who dreamed of forever. Once upon a time, two people were in love. Once upon a time, they died.

This is the truth.

And now I wash the slate clean and begin again.

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_The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits. All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again._

_The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun._

_Ecclesiastes, 1:6-7, 1:9_

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**AN:** Thanks for reading, and please review! I'm particularly interested in knowing what parts of the story worked for you, what parts didn't, and _why_.


	2. In a Dry and Thirsty Land

**Disclaimer:** _Naruto_ is the intellectual property of Masashi Kishimoto, Shueisha, VIZ Media, et al. No money is being made from this story and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Author's Note:** Last spring, I remixed "Seasons of Cloud and Shadow" by everysecondtuesday. (You can find her story at **manicjoy . livejournal . com / 5329 . html**) But the remix I posted was _not_ the first one I tried to write. What I ended up writing, in "Seasons of Cloud and Shadow (Like the Deserts Miss the Rain)," is kind of a nonlinear fairy-tale mash-up with biblical quotes and symbolism up the wazoo. What I started writing on my first attempt was a more straightforward third-person Temari POV... still with extra helpings of symbolism, but much more linear and somewhat less pretentious.

It's a fragment, but it's different enough from the final version that I want to post it as well, if only for the (self-indulgent) sake of completeness. So.

**PLEASE NOTE: This is NOT a second chapter. It is a ROUGH DRAFT FRAGMENT showing my first attempt to remix everysecondtuesday's story.**

**Summary:** Dreams of water in the desert. Temari/Shikamaru, light lime. Unfinished fragment.

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**Seasons of Cloud and Shadow (In a Dry and Thirsty Land)  
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Temari never meant to love Shikamaru.

First he was annoying -- the clever bastard who beat her and then quit, as if she didn't matter, as if all her pride and her effort and her years staving off madness and death meant less than nothing -- and he was an enemy besides. She wanted to beat his head in, wanted to scream that she existed, she mattered, she wasn't just a puppet dancing on her father's strings, or a sacrificial victim living only at her brother's whim. She wanted to win. But she had to wait for the signal, wait for the invasion to start. And he wasn't important. He wasn't.

A few months later she took great pleasure in rescuing him, rubbing his face in her skill and power and his own temporary helplessness. For just a few seconds, he looked impressed -- he saw her, saw _Temari_, not the Kazekage's daughter or Gaara's sister or a trivial obstacle -- and she thought, _ha, I win_... and then he shrugged and dismissed her. Again. Like she was a grain of sand or a weed, something to step over and forget.

Temari hated losing.

Over the next three years,she decided to make Shikamaru care. Every time she visited Konoha she demanded him as her liaison. She wrote letters to him whenever the whim struck her. She ran into his team on a border patrol and taunted him for six days straight, until Kankuro lost patience and dragged her back home.

Maybe he cared. Maybe he didn't. He was hard to read... but somewhere along the line, her plan backfired and Temari realized that she cared about him. Shikamaru was something familiar in a strange world. He was someone who'd been there -- she was never quite sure whether she meant the exam and the failed invasion, or that crazy attempt to spite Orochimaru by snatching the Uchiha brat away from his thugs, or just someone who'd seen Gaara at his worst and understood how utterly her world had been upended when Suna's council chose him as Kazekage -- but Shikamaru knew enough to catch her thoughts from vague statements, and that was a comfort.

Or maybe he was just clever enough to read her mind, or vague and lazy enough to seem understanding when really he didn't give a damn. Which cycled him right back to annoying -- and oddly, that was a comfort as well.

Shikamaru was a grumbling shadow slouching along beside her. A collection of curt, three-sentence replies to her rambling, stream-of-consciousness letters. A warm, silent presence to lean against when she thought she might go crazy playing diplomat and dragged him out onto the maze-like roofs of Konoha. A reluctant but wily sparring partner. A confidant. A friend. Eventually, a lover.

A constant, like sand and sky and pain.

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It wasn't as if it never rained in Suna. They were far enough north and west to escape the monsoons, but they had thunderstorms every month or so -- often with more wind and noise than actual water, but still. She'd seen rain.

It was just that in Konoha, water was a constant. The earth swallowed and swallowed, but the rain overwhelmed the soil, overflowed into streams and lakes and puddles, shot skyward as the thrumming blood of trees and vines, wafted damp and clinging as mist and fog, and bathed Shikamaru's skin to smooth fullness, not like the tough leather of Temari's own arms and face and hands.

She looked at her arm, brown against Shikamaru's pale stomach, and wondered if she could transplant herself, or if a desert weed would drown in all this richness.

"Where are you going?" Shikamaru asked, half-asleep.

"Nowhere," she said, and slid the door open and walked out into the rain, face turned toward the hidden sun, arms raised to touch the sky. Water poured through her hair, wept down her cheeks, slipped through her fingers. Her clothes dampened, soaked, clung to her body. Her toes gripped the earth, sliding on unfamiliar grass and mud.

Water, water everywhere. Temari opened her mouth, let life pour into her, tried to change.

Three hours later she was still herself. Still brown, still empty, still aching with all the things she'd pushed down and shut away over the years, all the pain and longing she kept wordless and hidden.

Shikamaru lay on the tatami where she'd left him, watching her. His eyes were dark and full, like the evening clouds still pouring their endless water into the earth. "Have fun?" he said, but his voice shook, just a little, as Temari peeled out of her clothes.

Sometimes he wasn't so hard to read.

For a time, he filled her. And then he sighed, and slept, and left her awake and wishing she had words to tell him what he meant to her.

Outside the rain drummed on the leaves and the streams and the earth, like tears and loss and broken dreams.

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**AN:** And that's as far as I got.

I'm not quite sure where I was going with this version. It might have worked out; it might not have. But I got stuck at this point and spent a couple days tossing story structure around in my head like a metaphorical game of pick-up sticks, during which the elements of everysecondtuesday's story hit some of my own preoccupations (fairy-tales, oral storytelling, structural experimentation), came down into a notably different configuration, and held my imagination hostage. So I let "In a Dry and Thirsty Land" lie fallow and wrote "Like the Deserts Miss the Rain" instead.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and please review! I'm particularly interested in knowing what parts of the story worked for you, what parts didn't, and _why_.


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